DICKENS, Charles. 18842

Description

Autograph letter Signed “Charles Dickens”, to Dr Stallard, telling him that he has written to George Russell about “your project for establishing Scrap Kitchens” and that he is “generally favorable” to another of his schemes (“…although I have great doubts of the discretion of boards of unpaid Visitors, and am inclined to believe that the sincerer and better order of Poor would not like to submit themselves to that amiable Inquisition. Decidedly, I do not think it calculated to ‘postpone the question of the public treatment of the Poor’, for I am persuaded that official personages will of themselves postpone it to the utmost confines of human endurance…”). 20 lines on 1 page, 7 x 4 inches, an attractive letter with the printed Gad’s Hill letterhead, in fine condition. Gad’s Hill Place, 19 December 1866. Charles Dickens (1812- 1870), author. ‘OFFICIAL PERSONAGES WILL OF THEMSELVES POSTPONE IT TO THE UTMOST CONFINES OF HUMAN ENDURANCE.’ Dickens mockingly doubts whether a scheme “calculated to ‘postpone the question of the public treatment of the Poor'” is really needed. The letter Dickens wrote that same day to George Russell is printed in the Pilgrim edition, and included in the selected edition. In it, he tells Russell that he is also writing to Stallard; this letter being otherwise unknown. The Pilgrim editors note that Joshua Stallard was physician at St George’s and St James’s Dispensary and was author of Workhouse Hospitals (1865).

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